Charlotte Marie Ford

Softly and tenderly, Jesus called our loving Charlotte Marie Ford, home on November 28, 2017. She was a beautiful 94 years young. Charlotte was born on October 8, 1923 to William and Edith “Eva” (Wiggins) Cochran in Cushing, OK. She was raised in Oklahoma and graduated from Stilwell High School. At the young age of a 15 and while attending a “Pie Supper” church social she met her future husband, Haskell Ford. He was four years her senior. As an adolescent she knew tough times. Her father, whom she loved fiercely, was diagnosed with a brain tumor which took his life. She cared and tended to him until his passing. This loss left a hole in her heart but would later pave a path in her life for which she would become a strong and stable shoulder and arm for others to lean on in tough times. After the death of her father, she and her mother relocated to Fullerton, CA. For a time, she helped her mother cook at a restaurant there while Haskell was away serving in the war. She then took a job with Douglass Aircraft. He came home on a furlough and they took the train to Kansas City, Kansas and married on May 12 of 1944. She continued working at Douglass Air Craft where she proudly became the original “Rosie the Riveter”. She was part of the riveters who worked on the famous Memphis Belle. She and Haskell remained in Fullerton, CA where they raised beautiful daughters, Donna and Darlene. Starting in 1963 she served at St. Jude’s Hospital as a nursing assistant. And in 1970 she became a nursing assistant at Casa Bonita and she worked there for 7 years. For 11 years she also worked for Beckman Plastic Plant, working nights while also caring for and helping to raise her two granddaughters, Danae and Danielle. In 2013, on a trip to attend their great-grandson’s wedding and visit family in Idaho, Charlotte fell ill and because of her health, the risk to return to California was too great. Lovingly her granddaughter, Necia and her husband Joe moved Charlotte and Haskell in with them at their home in Marsing where she has tenderly cared for them both. Her pastimes were many, but Charlotte enjoyed flowers. She tended to and was proud of her Bird of Paradise in her small but pleasant yard in California. Her favorite flower though, was the yellow rose. She enjoyed crocheting and sewing and always had a bag of yarn ready to go by her chair. She loved to shop clearance sales and was known to have rather ambitious excursions with her sisters to go shoe shopping when they would come to visit her. In her love for accessories, she also accumulated lots of costume jewelry. She was a caregiver to many, helping friends and family in their daily tasking of life and taking in the occasional person going through a rough time. She helped people monetarily where she could and donated to TV Evangelism. She was one of the first people to give money to the Trinity Broadcasting Network. She donated food and gifts at holiday time and strangers would often show up at her door because of her known generosity and hospitality. Charlotte’s greatest joy though, was her family. Out of her adoration for her husband, she spent hours visiting clients at Haskell’s barber shop and she was sweet to care for the washing of his barber shop towels. She loved her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren with a passion beyond words and they were her constant center and focus in life. She was a pillar of strength to her family. Charlotte is survived by her husband of 74 years, Haskell Ford; her daughters, Donna DeVelbiss (Jim) Huntley and Necia Darlene (Ron) Thompson; her grandchildren: Necia Denise (Joe) Lootens, Douglas (Jodi) DeVelbiss, Justin (Jamie) DeVelbiss, Danae (Ryan) Overman and Danielle Thompson; her great-granchildren: Trevor (Amber) Lootens, Demi DeVelbiss, Levi Overman and Emmaline Overman and finally her great-great-grandchildren: Ella Lootens, Adaline Lootens and Brinley Lootens. She is preceded in death by her father, William Cochran; her mother and step father, Edith Geniva “Eva” and Clay Blood; her sisters, Virginia (Austin) Ford and Ruth (Hurshall) Worley; a daughter, Cheryl Ford and her granddaughter, Misty DeVelbiss. Service Information